Joseph Keller, iMore: You can now use Afterlight’s filters and editing tools without leaving the iOS Photos app. Simply open the available extensions when editing a photo, hit More, and turn Afterlight on.

One of the things that keeps me coming back to the iPhone for photography the ease of sharing photos. The Mobi EyeFi wireless memory card brings a similar experience to almost every digital camera. Basically it's an SD card with a WiFi chipset.

Khürt Williams's insight:

The mobi eye-fi has change the way I do instant photography. My iPhone is no longer my goto phone. I shoot on my DSLR, instantly transfer to my iPhone, and process and post to social media.

John Paczkowski, writing for Recode: If you’ve been anticipating the debut of some new category-defining hardware at Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, a word of advice: Dial back your expectations or be disappointed.

One of the things that keeps me coming back to the iPhone for photography the ease of sharing photos. The Mobi EyeFi wireless memory card brings a similar experience to almost every digital camera. Basically it's an SD card with a WiFi chipset.

Korner is a new connected security system that aims to be simple to set up and be highly affordable. Owners place a single-piece tag at the corner of a door in the house, and connect an Ethernet dongle into their router.

Apple has been issued a couple new patents by the USPTO today (via AppleInsider), including one for hover touch sensing, the likes of which we’re starting to see rolled out in Android-powered devices lately like the Samsung Galaxy S4. Another patent issued today covers an embedded heart rate monitor that could add one more sensor to the iPhone, with potential for biometrics and fitness apps.

The touch and hover patent describes a means for detecting when a person’s finger is near to, but not actually in contact with, a touchscreen device. It outlines ways in which hover input can be used to issue commands to a device, with those screens outputting an electrical field to help determine the position of a user’s finger. But the system is about more than just the kind of hover controls that other OEMs have implemented to relatively little effect: Apple describes how the system can be used to offer more effective and accurate errant touch detection.

The hover field could help a mobile device better identify which touches were meant to actually spark an action, and which were accidental or incidental to something else. Apple already does some touch rejection with the latest iPads and their thinner side bezels, and with palm rejection in some apps, but this could theoretically help improve the performance of any accidental touch detection.

The patent also describes a method for better dealing with changing weather and environment conditions when it comes to accurate touch detection. It would work by allowing touch devices to take a baseline reading when conditions are optimal, and then detecting via sensors when conditions change and tweaking touch detection settings slightly to modify and improve accuracy when, say, the weather gets cold. In general, Apple seems to be looking at hover touch tech as more of a supplementary tech than something that will find expression in actual interface design.

As for the heart rate monitor, Apple’s patent describes a sensor found in the screen bezel or other conductive portion of the device that could read EKG data. You could imagine it going into the conductive metal ring around the Touch ID sensor in the current iPhone 5s design, for instance, which would be fitting also because of similar function between the two sensors.

Apple’s patent for heart rate monitoring sensors describes ways they might be used to identify a user according to their unique biometric information. The fingerprint sensor in the iPhone 5s serves a similar purpose, but paired with a heart rate sensor, it becomes less of a convenience factor and more about secure identification.

As always, don’t expect to see these Apple patents go into devices immediately, but they do provide an interesting look behind the curtains at Apple’s R&D efforts. Two-factor biometric security would definitely put Apple even more in the lead when it comes to device-based security, and improving touch screens and their performance will always deliver benefits. And Apple already leads the pack in that regard, too, according to recent comparative tests.

The Macalope: Look, all you need to do is get an Android phone from HTC for build quality. Then get an Android phone from Sony because their cameras are so good. Then get a Galaxy Note from Samsung for the largest screen.

What can you do with a billion iPhones? What can all of us do with a billion iPhones? Analysts, telcos, networking firms and research consultants expect more than 4 billion smartphones in use by the end of this decade, maybe sooner.

Nice piece from MG Siegler. If the iPad is a fad, it’s the greatest fad in the history of American business. And so I repeat: the iPad got too successful, too quickly. And everyone (including Apple) got spoiled by those insane numbers.

Khürt Williams's insight:

A few people in the press are asking if the iPad has peaked. I'm wondering if those people have been paid to write articles.

Find my iPhone, a technology that allows you to track down your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Mac to the last place it was connected to a cellular or Wi-Fi network, has unsurprisingly lead to incidents of "hero complex" over the years.

. Washington Post: Major U.S. technology companies have largely ended the practice of quietly complying with investigators’ demands for e-mail records and other online data, saying that users have a right to know in advance when their information...

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